05-11-2021, 11:03 AM
His signings were all established championship players or premier youngsters on loan, and none of them bad signings per se IMO but obviously Hirst & Ahadme have not worked out, which is the risk you take when you take inexperienced youngsters - but they are only on loan, he hasn't signed them.
The stick I'd beat Cowley with is his inability to instil any confidence into the team. The way the heads drop when they concede is symptomatic of a team scared of something. Rescuing points against Accrington & Cheltenham is perhaps a sign that he is addressing this, but lets see it against better quality opposition before we can say the problem is fixed.
This bunch of players is capable of performing much better than they have done so far this season - the capacity for improvement is there. Cowley's job is to bring about that improvement and I'm hopeful that the addtion of a couple of decent signings in January can help that. January should hopefully be a more normal window than the summer was with maybe better players available than you normally see in a January window.
But sacking Cowley would be stupid IMO, I don't see why any new unemployed manager we could bring in mid-season would be any better placed to improve this bunch. I might think differently if Cowley was denying the problems that exist or pretending things were OK - he isn't - he is facing them head on like an experienced manager should do.
Bottom line is I think the players, collectively and in some cases individually, are underperforming far worse than the manager is. I think Cowley is a good manager and you don't solve the problem of having a good manager and bad players by getting rid of the good manager. That just makes things worse.
The stick I'd beat Cowley with is his inability to instil any confidence into the team. The way the heads drop when they concede is symptomatic of a team scared of something. Rescuing points against Accrington & Cheltenham is perhaps a sign that he is addressing this, but lets see it against better quality opposition before we can say the problem is fixed.
This bunch of players is capable of performing much better than they have done so far this season - the capacity for improvement is there. Cowley's job is to bring about that improvement and I'm hopeful that the addtion of a couple of decent signings in January can help that. January should hopefully be a more normal window than the summer was with maybe better players available than you normally see in a January window.
But sacking Cowley would be stupid IMO, I don't see why any new unemployed manager we could bring in mid-season would be any better placed to improve this bunch. I might think differently if Cowley was denying the problems that exist or pretending things were OK - he isn't - he is facing them head on like an experienced manager should do.
Bottom line is I think the players, collectively and in some cases individually, are underperforming far worse than the manager is. I think Cowley is a good manager and you don't solve the problem of having a good manager and bad players by getting rid of the good manager. That just makes things worse.